TIME

Hard to watch. Harder not to

Camille (Adams) contends with her chilly mother Adora (Clarkson) inside her haunting childhood home

AMY ADAMS STILL HAS CUTS ON HER THUMB FROM where she would rub the screen of a cracked iPhone on the set of her new series Sharp Objects, premiering July 8 on HBO. At first glance, the miniseries looks like a straightforward thriller: Adams plays Camille, an intrepid reporter who returns to her small Missouri hometown to investigate the murders of two girls.

But Sharp Objects, based on the first novel by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, turns out to be something much darker and more ambitious than your average whodunit. The true mystery isn’t what happened to the missing girls—it’s what’s haunting Camille, who must confront the ghosts in her relationships with her domineering mother (Patricia Clarkson) and estranged half sister (Eliza Scanlen).

An alcoholic and a cutter, Camille sustains herself throughout the day by taking sips from a water bottle she covertly fills with vodka and

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